First off the reason I am posting this here is because it will get seen alot more than in the land use forum, so if at all possible I hope it can stay for awhile and people will e-mail the contact person. I know alot of you are not from minnesota but if the people at the state level see the amount of people that are concerned about trail closeures, mabey it will help to keep them open. A good portion of trails in the state forests and National forests in the state of minnesota are being closed to all motor vehicles, some will remain open to ATV's but Jeeps will be outta luck. One issue that we are trying to address is trying to break the motor vehicles into different classes like the state has done with ATV's and their weight limit, so if you think that the idea of dividing the motor vehicles into two different groups, like full size trucks and smaller jeeps or light trucks is good mabey you could mention that in your e-mail. I thank you all for your support and I hope you send this guy a message.

Having just held five open houses to outline its project area and present base maps on the motorized use planning effort in the east-central state forests, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is reminding the public to submit comments soon, because the planning team will begin its deliberations later this month. The planning team will produce forest classification and route designation proposals to manage motorized and nonmotorized access and recreation in the planning area.

The planning area includes the DAR, Hill River, Land O’Lakes, Savanna, Snake River, and Waukenabo state forests, as well as scattered DNR Forestry-administered lands in Aitkin, Anoka, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Pine, Southern Cass, and Washington counties. The east-central group is a cooperative planning effort between the DNR and the land departments for Aitkin, Cass, and Pine counties.

According to Bill Johnson, the DNR Trails and Waterways planner assigned to manage the planning process, the team and county partners are seeking information early in the process. “We want to better understand how the public uses the forests now, and how they'd like to see motorized and nonmotorized access and recreation managed into the future.”

"At this stage in the process, we want to know three things from the public," said Johnson. "We want to know if the routes illustrated on our base maps are accurate; how people are currently using the forest; and how the public wants motorized and nonmotorized recreation managed in the future for these forests.”

To date, the DNR has received more than three dozen written comments and has spoken to more than 100 individuals at the public open houses it held in recent weeks.

"This is the early part of the planning process, so the information we're gathering now will be used to develop some preliminary proposals that we can bring to the public next winter," Johnson said. "The planning team will try to gage from these public comments how they can best write a proposal that protects natural resources while allowing reasonable access to public lands in this part of the state."